


Appleseeds of Love

by LouRea (MementoVitae)



Series: DMC Theme Weeks [3]
Category: Devil May Cry
Genre: Dadgil Week (Devil May Cry), Domestic Fluff, Family, Food as a Metaphor for Love, Gen, Light Angst, Two Shot, V and Vergil Try to Out-Dad Each other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-15
Updated: 2019-11-16
Packaged: 2021-01-30 22:34:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,982
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21435796
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MementoVitae/pseuds/LouRea
Summary: Vergil has only been back from Hell for a few months, and Nero's birthday is approaching. So how is an emotionally troubled half-demon to begin bridging the gap between himself and the son he never knew?With a little help from his human side and a homemade apple pie.~A Two-shot for Dadgil Week 2019~
Series: DMC Theme Weeks [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1439152
Comments: 22
Kudos: 133





	1. Chapter 1

The first ring felt deafening. 

Vergil was not a creature much given to regret. He'd lived most of his life without, and only a scant few things had pierced that barrier since his return from Hell. Of those privileged few, only one was truly important to him. He wouldn't admit it aloud. He _couldn't_ admit it aloud. But his actions, if he had not taken such care to keep their full breadth away from watchful eyes, would have outed him immediately. He told himself this didn't count. He didn't believe it, but that was hardly the point.

The second ring went almost unnoticed.

He readjusted himself and tried not to pace around the polished dogwood desk. Crumbs and telltale tomato stains marred the exquisite finish. Four long months since they returned from Hell and despite his every effort to keep it clean, it never stayed that way. Luxury was wasted on Dante. He insisted on it for a few very specific things, but he maintained those things just as poorly as everything else in this cramped hole in the wall. Vergil almost wished that Lady and Trish had refused to give the deed back. At least then they might have a location that wasn’t suffering from two decades of neglect and baked in grime.

The gentle third ring of the phone came and went. It was possible that he wasn’t going to get an answer at this hour. Maybe it was better if--

A click interrupted the fourth ring. If not for a slight shuffle of sheets and a low, cranky grumble before he spoke, it would hardly sound like he'd been sleeping. "Yes."

"I need to speak with you." Silence answered him, and he knew it was an intentional and annoyed silence. Vergil never called him. He added quickly: "It's about Nero."

"...Where's Dante?"

"The bar."

More silence, and then a faint but sarcastic laugh. "Fine. What do you want?"

"Not here. I'll come speak to you personally."

"It’s 3am. Now is not--"

"Now is preferable."

“Is Nero ill or injured?”

“No.”

“Then it can wait.” The voice on the other lowered severely. "Or did your vacation in hell debase you such that you've once again become a demon who intrudes into others' homes regardless of their wishes?"

A blue wind swept around Vergil's legs. There it was. That infuriating habit of his, always taking things where they didn’t need to go. But Vergil bit back his urge to hang up. This was for Nero. He’d wracked his mind and come up with a thousand answers and none of them felt right. He needed a human touch. A human perspective.

"When."

"Tomorrow, not a second before 10AM.”

“And not a second after.”

“_Goodnight_, Vergil."

A click and the line was empty. 

* * *

V’s existence had resumed much like it started. He woke up bare-assed and white-haired on the rotted remains of the red lounge chair that had once been the focal decoration of the living room in the Sparda estate. Through a series of events he chose not to elaborate on, he managed to get in contact with Nico and was safely delivered to Nero and Kyrie’s care in Fortuna. Some two weeks later he began screaming in the night. Like Athena bursting from the skull of Zeus, his familiars had filled his head with nightmares and then erupted from it. An event, they found out later that day, which coincided with Dante and Vergil’s return from Hell.

No one had figured out how any of it could possibly have happened, and in truth, no one was asking; V least of all.

Though he was a frail shade of Vergil, he was still an extremely competent devil hunter. It showed every sign of being an annoyance to him, but he’d integrated into society with relative ease, and the apartment was the most recent sign of his successful endeavors.

Vergil didn’t know what he expected as he climbed the tight stairwell, but he knew when the door cracked open five steps from the top that it had been prepped specifically for his visit.

He wasn’t wrong.

Shadow raised her head over the back of the couch opposite V, gave him a disinterested look, yawned, and lay back down. When he tried to sit, she made no effort to move out of his way. Over faintly playing music that would have been at home in Nico’s truck, Griffon could be heard snickering. There were books on the low table between them—stacked tomes on the subject of Enochian and Umbra Witches. Over the scent of chocolate, the air smelled faintly of rosemary.

V sat half-dressed in a recliner the color of wine, nestled into a zebra print robe. His hair was damp and swept back in a messy ponytail. Beside him was a slice of chocolate cake with glistening jam running through it, so rich it was almost black against the whiteness of the plate. A steaming cup of tea sat at its side. Even from across the table, it smelled the way expensive brandy looked.

It was subtle. If Vergil had come with anyone else, they wouldn’t have understood why Vergil sat like a statue and gripped the Yamato like he was expecting to be attacked. Even the bedroom door was partially opened, and he didn’t want to imagine what lengths V might have gone to in order to make that most private space as upsetting as possible if Vergil dared to pay it any attention.

He tried to focus on the touches that were clearly normal fixtures. Carefully placed shelves that provided homes to pots of plants from bright aloes and slender ivies to pale spathiphyllum and dark (and admittedly lovely) African violets. Bottles of unopened wines sat on top of kitchen cabinets, and empty bottles with odd but strangely satisfying designs adorned display cases.

“You seem on edge.” V took a bite of his cake. “More so than usual.”

Vergil scoffed. “I’m wondering what part of me could be content with such a meager existence.”

“I suppose no man likes to look at the parts of himself that shame him most.”

“I’m also wondering where you got that appalling robe.”

“It was a housewarming gift. From Nico.” No doubt to mock him, V seeped even more luxuriously into the deepest, plushest reaches of the recliner. “But let’s not stray from the topic, Vergil. I am meager, it’s because you believed me to be when you cut me away. And as has been the case with most of your power grabs, that proved to be an underestimation.”

“Perhaps,” Vergil said begrudgingly. “But you’re your own now.”

“I am, and this is how I live. If you see me relaxed in my own home and think it meager, that says more about your ineptitude at living like a human than about me.”

There was nothing relaxed about it and they both knew it. V was indulging every human delight and concern Vergil had ever chosen to throw away, from a love for chocolate to interest in their mother’s history. Part of the reason they so rarely talked was that V could not resist lording how comfortable he was in his humanity over Vergil, just as he was doing now.

The other part was that Vergil hated how antsy it made him to be in the company of someone who vocally acknowledged things he could barely entertain in the privacy on his own mind.

“Besides,” V said before Vergil could retreat too far inside himself. “I couldn’t dislike this appearance, frail as it may be. It takes closely after our mother.”

Vergil stared down his nose. “You mean _my_ mother.”

V’s cane flicked playfully, but the point reached Vergil’s neck with a baleful violet glow to its tip. “That’s an ill-mannered thing to say to a man you’ve come to beg assistance from.”

“**Ask,”** Vergil corrected sharply. “For help with Nero’s birthday present.”

The cane wavered, and slowly returned to V’s side. He sat up, a cocky smile cracking the illusion of unbothered comfort he had woven around himself. “_Pardon_?”

Vergil stilled under the increasing amusement in his other’s eyes. “Nero’s birthday is in two weeks. I wish to acquire a gift.”

V’s shoulders shook with silent laughter. “And you come to _me_. You must truly be desperate.”

“Sincere,” he said quietly. He took a deep breath and squared his shoulders. “I am trying to be sincere.”

V’s eyes—their mother’s eyes—watched his. The mirth drained from them, and he sagged back with a low sigh. “Ah, I see. You want an appropriate gift for your soon-to-be 25-year-old son. The one you sired during a single tryst when you were barely a man and whom you have damaged in ways both direct and indirect from the moment he was born.”

“V,” Vergil warned.

“You abandoned him,” V continued without a care. “Came back just to enter his home and take the only piece of his heritage he had, and then, after he had saved you and that fool brother of yours from yourselves, you abandoned him again, leaving only a gift whose worth he could not _possibly_ understand.”

Shadow growled disapprovingly as demonic energy swirled off Vergil’s body. He didn’t move. His hands remained tightly clasped around the Yamato. But he was fast approaching his limit and V had to know it. “That’s enough.”

“It isn’t,” V said softly, and let his chin rest on his palm. “You owe that child your agony. If it wounds you beyond what your pride can bear just to hear the ways you failed him from me, forget this effort.” His eyes had dropped, and his expression grew distant. “You will only hurt him more if you flee from him as you fled from me.”

It was a trick only V could perform to be so scathing yet so attentive to the way Vergil perceived the world. It was also was the exact reason Vergil had called on him. He hated him for it, but he would’ve hated it far more for this matter to become the subject of some imbecilic joke from his brother or any of his gallery. V was pushing his buttons but from a position of comprehensive context that no one else would or could ever imitate.

And his words were correct. Nero was hot-headed and foul-mouthed, and he would no doubt make his grievances known in the most abrasive ways he could the moment Vergil tried to get closer. The two of them were oil and water at times just trying to exist in the same space.

Vergil had never thrown him away; he would have had to know about him to do that. But it probably didn’t feel that way to Nero, and by a certain measure, he was right. Vergil’s younger self would not have changed his course for a son.

He knew that well, and so did V.

“There is... much I hope to convey,” Vergil said carefully. “But I do not wish to overstep his boundaries or my own.”

“I know,” said V, his tone just shy enough of pity to not raise Vergil’s defenses. “Which is why we’ll have a challenge. We’ll give him something from the heart, and see which he likes best.”

Vergil brows raise. “We?”

“Of course.” V raised his chin and his haughty expression was terrible in its familiarity despite the unfamiliar angles of his face. “Nero is _our_ son.”

Vergil cracked a smile. V looked barely any older than Nero, but they were getting somewhere, so he kept that thought to himself. Besides, it wasn't a completely unwarranted claim. He had no idea what, if anything, he'd been thinking that night, but V probably remembered. “What do you propose?”

“Food. Specifically, our mother’s apple pie.”

Vergil drummed skeptically at Yamato’s scabbard. “You truly think that will make a suitable gift?”

“Nero beat you and Dante into submission so you wouldn’t kill each other.” V took the saucer of cake into his lap and wiped up a smear of jam. “You may not know Nero well, but you know what motivates him.”

Family. Of course. Perhaps it would ease both him and Nero in if they began with something ancestral. It was quite personal, but Vergil could accept that in exchange for how temporary it was. Whether Nero liked it or hated it, it wouldn't linger like a material gift. Whatever happened, they would both be free from reminders.

He nodded, said he’d be in touch, and quickly stood up. Their business was done and he was eager to be out of V’s space.

It was only when V’s voice did not chase him at the door that he felt comfortable enough to pause. He tilted his head, enough to see his other self, but not enough that V could see the smile tugging at his expression. “Did I hear you correctly earlier? Eva is _our_ mother, and Nero is _our_ son, but Dante is _my_ brother?”

V scowled with the fork still protruding from his lips. “You can keep that oaf all for yourself.”


	2. Chapter 2

The waiting was somehow worse for Vergil. The days seemed to pass at the pace of a fly in fresh amber, occasionally broken up by Dante’s antics. Early on they painfully transparent attempts to thin his patience until he said what was on his mind. Then suddenly, about five days before Nero’s birthday, he switched to making suggestions that they go shopping together. It might have been touching if it weren’t obvious that Dante had forgotten Nero’s birthday entirely and was hoping to receive help as much as provide it.

It was something of a relief when he met up with V three days beforehand to finally handle the shopping, but it was short-lived. Everything they could possibly argue about, they did.

What brand of flour to use, what _kind_ of flour to use, whether or not they needed cornstarch, whole or pre-ground spices, the necessity of vinegar (which led to a re-visiting of the flour argument), what kind of fat to use, white, brown, or raw sugar, and finally a long and heated debate about which apples would be best that that ended in baffled silence when they both realized they had no idea where Eva had gotten her apples or any of the food she kept them fed with. Not a single living soul had ever come to their home and they rarely left.

When they finally had everything, they were both exhausted, yet Vergil noted neither of them seemed particularly displeased. V was smiling, and Vergil was scowling less than he usually did when he had to endure crowds. In this regard, at least, they were equal and worthy opponents. It was enjoyable to battle with one's wits once in a while.

The one thing they had instantly agreed on was that they should give Nero his gift as privately as possible. What Vergil had not expected that to mean was getting on a boat to Fortuna to make it in Nero and Kyrie’s home the day before the big event.

“The scent of the food being made is a part of the experience,” V had pointed out.

Vergil couldn’t argue with that. Or with the slightly menacing way Kyrie smiled at him when they arrived and did not move to allow them inside.

For V she spared a softer smile, which V returned with unexpected warmth. “He will behave himself.”

“Then he won’t mind putting the sword in the garage. Will you, Mr. Vergil?”

He nodded stiffly and obeyed, and to his surprise that seemed to be all it took to earn her forgiveness. She welcomed them in, idly informing them that Nero was out with Nico on a small job and gently admonishing the children for running down the halls to see who had come. Perhaps owing to being in Kyrie’s care for some time, they greeted V more like he was one of them than an adult. For Vergil, they spared more wary looks. He heard them whisper a truly horrific hypothesis that he was V’s father before Kyrie announced they were there to make something special for Nero and diplomatically assigned them tasks that would keep them away from the cooking space. 

With V occupying the table and Vergil taking the modest kitchen’s limited counter space, they got to work.

No banter or any conversation was exchanged; it wasn’t that kind of competition. The only sounds were of dry ingredients whispering against ceramic dishes and children’s footsteps in other parts of the house, occasionally parted by Kyrie’s closer but punctiliously quiet movements whenever she passed by to check on them.

With Dante there was always the risk he’d come in and want to stick his unwashed hands in things, especially if it was sweet. Here, Vergil quickly grew absorbed in the process of pressing cold cubes of butter into the flour with equally cold water and forming his dough. V moved around him as needed, too similar in his movements (even if they weren’t as precise) for Vergil to feel intruded upon, and the minutes passed in peace. He didn’t realize just how down his guard was until he heard V humming.

Curious. Vergil got the strangest sense that he knew that song...

He shot a mistrustful glare over his shoulder, but it quickly fell apart. V was slowly peeling an apple with a distant, beatific look that would have been well suited to be the subject of some aspiring renaissance painter’s work. This wasn’t another of his games, and that he didn’t notice Vergil looking at him wasn’t from a concentrated effort to feign ignorance. The process of cooking was meditative for Vergil, and he suspected that held the same for V. His ease was genuine.

Did he even know he was humming their mother’s lullaby?

Did he truly feel so safe…?

Vergil had menaced this very house less than a year ago. For V to get so comfortable was foolish. But if all it did was make him hum, little was lost by letting him continue.

And he did. Gently and sweetly and idly, over and over to Vergil’s private enjoyment, while he peeled and sliced their apples and softened them on the stove with fragrant cinnamon and spicy nutmeg.

The timer chimed and snapped V from his melodic trance. As Vergil stood aside, he couldn’t help but notice that what V pulled from the oven was not a pie dish.

Kyrie’s coppery head appeared at the corner of his vision, and even she halted to see what V was doing. “Weren’t you baking pie?”

V smiled and fanned himself. In addition to other weaknesses, he began to sweat almost obscenely at the merest exposure to the oven’s heat. “We are. The way our mother made them.”

Vergil’s brows drew. His eyes wandered the bottom of V’s dish, covered in a fluffy, barely browned substance that looked more like the beginnings of shortbread or a pound cake than a pie crust. There was milk on the table, and not a rolling pin in sight. The carton meant to serve them both was missing five eggs—Vergil had only used one.

“Vergil?”

His head snapped up. Both were looking at him strangely and the quality of their silence told him their conversation had ended a stretch of seconds ago.

“Kyrie said Eva’s recipe sounds Eastern European.”

“…I see.”

The apples bubbled in the silence. The scent seemed so sweet it would sicken him. He turned them off, and turned his back on them, staring at the meticulously lined pie dish and the half-rolled dough next to it. That was supposed to be braided on top, wasn’t it? Or was it cutter-shapes layered atop one another?

V’s voice parted the silence like a gentle knock on a closed door. “You don’t remember, do you?”

Vergil wished he’d been snarky about it. That way he could justify the tension that turned him all wires and ice and have something to direct it at. Instead, the urge to defend himself roiled around with nowhere to go, draining into several half-woven thoughts of starting over until it rotted and finally sought its final refuge in contempt.

He knew just fine how to make an apple pie. What he was making would taste fine. Maybe better than V’s. But it wouldn’t be his mother’s. Nothing of the tastes or the textures that made it hers lingered with him. Just the idea of what a pie was, planted like a cuckoo’s egg and finally hatching into something that wasn’t the truth.

“Would you excuse us?” asked V.

Kyrie’s light steps departed, and V’s slower ones drew closer until he was leaned against the counter on the opposite side of the oven. Vergil gave a short, quiet bark of a laugh at his own expense. V was him. He would know that sound for the frustration it signaled.

V was shaped by a month spent crawling through the dirt and refusing to die and now he wanted nothing more than to indulge the simple joys of living as ravenously as possible. For as much as he could irritate Vergil by doing so, Vergil had never once thought that V had something he wanted, because everything V had was within Vergil’s reach—if he so chose.

Now he found this was not entirely the case. V had memories he didn’t, and it was all too karmic a punishment that Vergil could not take back all of what he had cut away. Poetic justice for a crime against himself.

“Did you know?”

“Do you believe I’m different enough from you to be such a deceitful opponent?”

“…No.” Vergil stared down at the dough, so immaculate but so incorrect. He sighed. “This gift is meant to come from the heart. This is what I remember. So it’s what I will give.”

“If that’s what you wish,” said V. “You know I would gladly share the recipe.”

“_Gladly_?” Vergil asked skeptically.

“With all due joy.” V grinned like a devil. “Watching you bear the indignity that comes with any perceived lack of self-sufficiency on your part is its own reward.”

Vergil’s eyes narrowed, and he studiously returned to his dough. It left a sour taste at the back of his throat, but he had come this far. It wouldn’t last, he reminded himself. If he didn’t like it, it would rot in a week. If he focused on that, he wouldn’t have to waste energy wondering if <strike>he</strike> **it**—could be enough even if it wasn’t perfect.

As if reading his mind, V slipped on a glaringly feminine headband no doubt loaned to him by Kyrie, grabbed the remainder of his dough from the fridge, and mumbled over a slice of gently sautéed apple snatched from his own pan. “If things had to be perfect to be loved, nobody would have any care for that wild boar you live with.”

Vergil didn’t like to think of V having enough power over him to extend mercy. He wanted to be irate with having his mind read, but mostly he was glad V couldn’t see the smile that split his face.

* * *

Kyrie was pouring tea when Nero and Nico arrived. A stampede of little feet converged from every corner of the house, only to stop cold behind V’s extended cane. He held up a finger to his lips, gestured at Kyrie’s severe smile, and when he lowered it, they moved in an orderly fashion to meet the man of the house.

To Vergil’s surprise, V went with them.

“Bones!” Nico shouted, from the down the hall. “Ain’t seen your skinny ass since the housewarming!”

“Always a pleasure, Nico. I’ve found the robe quite cozy.”

“You and Kyrie been baking again?” Nero’s voice. Same as always, but Vergil shifted in his chair. Did V come by to cook regularly? “Smells pretty good in here.”

“I was assisting with an early gift on someone else’s behalf. You can expect mine tomorrow.”

What?

“Cool. You actually manage to find any?”

“About a month ago.”

** _What?_ **

“And what, you kept it all that time for the suspense? Come on, V, where is it?”

“It’s a birthday gift,” V chuckled. “You get it on your birthday.”

“Speakin’ of gifts,” Nico interjected. “I got another fancy-lookin’ bottle if you’re still collectin’ em. S’in the van.”

“Excellent timing. Allow me to grab my things and I’ll take it with me. Nero, I’ll see you tomorrow.”

If V had been anyone else, the look Vergil gave him as he strolled back in the kitchen would have killed him instantly. Instead, he cracked that infuriating smirk and tossed his cane over his shoulder.

“Something wrong?”

“I believe,” Vergil whispered so harshly he could have made a tea kettle whistle. “This was supposed to be a competition! What happened to Nero being our son?!”

“He’s our son, but for me, I get to enjoy him as a friend as well. And since you could not combat me on even ground due to an unforeseen difference in our memory, I concede.”

“Are you even me?!” he hissed, rising from his chair and nearly climbing over the table. “We don’t _concede_!”

“I’m you,” V said with such an aura of self-satisfaction Vergil wanted to cut him on down principle. “But I think you’ll find I’m the part you never knew very well.”

With a wink and polite farewell to Kyrie, he left.

And Nero entered.

Vergil was caught simultaneously in the headlight of Nero’s surprise and his dawning realization that V had played him from the very beginning. A moment to gather himself would have been ideal, but if compressed time now it would have been too much like running away.

Perhaps his determination was a bit too strong. As Nero picked up on his aggressive stance and icy scowl, he grew tense in kind. He was just as divested of weapons as Vergil, but he angled his body in preparation for an attack.

“What the hell are you doing here?” he growled.

Vergil’s scowl deepened. “I wasn’t aware I was so unwelcome.”

A dozen expletives of increasing intensity flashed through Nero’s eyes, and would no doubt have escaped if not for the presence of Kyrie. She was setting the plates down—not banging them, but definitely making their presence unignorable. 

They broke eye contact, and the air almost immediately began to clear. Vergil took a deep breath and settled back into his seat at the table. “I wished to provide a gift,” he said gingerly. “For your birthday.”

Nero stood straight and cocked a brow at the tin in the center of the table. “So you baked a _pie_?”

“I don’t know you well enough to purchase a gift.”

“Wonder whose fault that is.”

“Nero.” Kyrie’s voice was calm and quiet and devoid of inflection. Nero gave her his full attention, but she didn’t look up. Her fingers were delicately at work slicing the pie. “This was your grandmother’s recipe.”

Nero’s expression slackened. His eyes jerked between the pie and Vergil and he shifted his weight and rubbed at his hair the way he often did when he was trying not to betray an emotion he wasn’t comfortable with. He was a fidgeter where Vergil went stone still in the same circumstance.

He dropped into the chair across the table from Vergil, equal parts wary and confused by the faintly steaming triangle on the plate before him. “Your mom’s recipe, huh…”

“My attempt.” Vergil nodded his gratitude to Kyrie but gently declined the slice she offered. He had no appetite. “In truth… I couldn’t remember it very well.”

Something complicated moved through Nero’s eyes and through his posture, right down to the way he hesitated to stick his fork into the flaky crust. It seemed to take him an effort of will to take the first bite, and there was a notable delay before he began to chew. There was no sign of disgust, but nor was there any sign of satisfaction. Nero swallowed laboriously, sat the fork aside, and tucked his hands below the table. He murmured something to Kyrie. She rubbed at his cheek, and for a fleeting moment, Nero melted enough to press his face into her hand for a kiss. Then she was gone and the moment passed.

It dawned on Vergil that the boy didn’t have any appetite either.

“It’s good,” Nero said begrudgingly.

Two words and Vergil felt himself warming with pride he couldn’t truly enjoy it. Nero seemed so uncomfortable. Their eyes met again, and Vergil had to wonder what expression was on his face to make Nero’s brows draw and his arms cross.

“What?” he growled.

“You’re anxious.”

“And you’re _staring_, guy who ripped my arm off and has been in my house baking me a pie.”

“Ah.” Vergil let his eyes drop with a sigh. Perhaps it was too soon for this. Perhaps this was too much for either of them. “I’ll go.”

“If you get outta that goddamn chair, I’ll kick your ass all the way back to hell.”

Vergil’s eyes lifted, flickering with both curiosity and tension as Nero’s wings shimmered just on the edge of visibility. He remained seated, but his own demonic energies answered Nero’s like a February gust.

“What would you have me do, then? Sit in silence while you glare at me?”

“it’d be a taste of your own medicine. Who knows, might even teach you some manners.”

To his surprise, Nero took another bite of the pie. An enormous and messy one that demolished all but the final quarter of his slice and caused his cheeks to bulge. It was such a Dante move that Vergil could easily have convinced himself Nero was the _other_ twin’s son if not for how similar they were beneath the surface.

He nodded toward the counter. “Is the other pie yours too?”

Not similar enough to keep Nero from talking with half-chewed food in his mouth, Vergil lamented. “…V made that one.”

“Two pies? Must be my lucky day.” He reached out and snatched the other pie to the table, but whatever had come over him wasn’t enough to dim his sense of observation. “Why’s this one different?”

Vergil’s lips thinned. He folded his hands, perhaps a bit too tightly, atop the table. “Because it’s made correctly.”

“Yours tasted pretty correct to me.”

“I mean…” He looked down at his own pie. Why was this so hard to say? “V still remembered our mother’s pie. I did not.”

The knife paused mid slice as Nero’s eyes sought out Vergil’s then slid to the other pie. He visibly weighed whether he should ask how V could remember something that Vergil didn’t, but that wasn’t what came out of his mouth. “So, you didn’t remember what it tasted like?”

“I did not even remember what it looked like.”

His fingers drummed. Every part of him shifted one way, then the other before he settled back into place and coughed aside. “You wanna eat this one with me or something?”

Or something. Such a useless but illuminating form of bluster, as if Vergil could possibly be distracted from such a clumsy, but gentle invitation. He didn’t truly know if he was ready to remember the taste of his mother’s pie, Nero was already sliding the plate over.

And he wouldn’t concede.

V’s pie looked nothing like his. The covering was a series of shredded pieces that give an impression somewhere between cobbler and caramelized popcorn. There was no crust around the outer edge, and the layer of apples was visible and vaguely seeping gooey baked sugar. The crust beneath was the same as the one above, soft and cakey and bronzed by cinnamon and brown sugar. A slightly floral scent that made Vergil restless wafted from it. He knew it was the secret ingredient she used, but even now he could not recall what it was.

He wasn’t sure if he was expecting something when he takes the first bite. The apples were soft, but not lacking in their own texture. The upper crust had a pleasant flakiness to it, while the bottom was spongy and soaked in apple sugars. There was a slight crunch of almond slivers—something he knew Dante had probably hated as a child.

As he swallowed his first bite, the floral scent lingered like a subtle perfume.

Elderflower. Her secret ingredient was elderflower. Boiled in water and sugar and reduced to a pale, partly cloudy chartreuse syrup.

Across from him, Nero’s fork hit the place with just a little too much force. He was only taking his first bite, though he took it with far less reservation than with the pie Vergil made.

Embarrassment burned Vergil’s ears. Nero had been watching him, probably just as intently as Vergil had been watching him.

“You remember gram’s name?”

“_Gram?”_ Vergil stuttered, nearly dropping his fork as the heat of embarrassment was replaced with the fire of indignance. Nero rarely called him ‘father’, or even the much more abrasive ‘old man’. It was hard to tell if he was jealous or angry that Nero used such a casual term despite not knowing her.

He told himself that was just Nero’s way, but his answer came out needle-thin. “Her name was _Eva_.”

“You guys lived in that big mansion and she still cooked like this?”

“Like what?” he demanded.

“Like… homemade stuff, I guess.” Nero busied himself rubbing at his hair and taking another too-large bite. “This tastes like something Kyrie would make.”

Vergil relaxed. He wasn’t terribly familiar with Kyrie, but Nero’s metric for love was measured according to her and it showed in every single interaction they had. To compare it her cooking was possibly the highest praise Nero could give.

He took another bite himself and tried to remember what that love felt like, but it was elusive. Flitting just beyond his reach, but always within his sight, like a butterfly weaving through rays of light in an otherwise dark forest.

“She made everything,” he said quietly. “It was just the three of us after Sparda was gone.”

“Mom’s home cooking…”

Any number of things could follow that sentence. Vergil could feel each one hovering over him like summoned swords, and he couldn’t help but tense as he waited to find out which would leave Nero’s mouth and pierce him.

But the only thing Nero pierced was the last of Eva’s pie from his plate.

“Fuck that’s good,” he said over a full mouth. It was maddening and Vergil knew damn well he didn’t do that in front of Kyrie. As if to affirm it, he stabbed his fork into Vergil’s pie and pulled himself a bite directly from the tin with a smirk. “You got a lot of catching up to do if you wanna compete with that.”

“I…see.”

“So? You gonna try again next year or what?”

Vergil met his gaze and found he couldn’t dislike the cocky glint in his eye. It was too much like his own when he was younger. A short, arrogant laugh escapes him, even though his mind is already constructing a neat list of ways to improve his own recipe. "I’ll be sure to impress.”

“I’m already impressed, I want better than that.” He pointed to the rustic pie to the left of Vergil’s. “A pie good enough to make a devil cry.”

Vergil managed a smile. The easiest he’s managed with Nero since his return from hell. “Then we’ll settle this on your 26th birthday?”

Nero continued to scarf down his pie as atrociously as possible. “Sure thing, old man.”

Vergil thought in the back of his mind that maybe calling V hadn’t been such a bad idea after all.

He was still going to kill him for this though.


End file.
